Opinion: Why it’s right for us to mourn the loss of More! magazine

The publication that brought us “Position of the Month” is no more – this week assistant editor Liv Siddall looks at the demise of More! magazine and suggests that we should show solidarity with all of those fighting the good fight in print. As ever you can add your thoughts below…

We read this week on the once social network, now tolling bell that is Twitter, that More! magazine, one of Britain’s leading weekly gossip magazines had been suspended by Bauer Media. I say gossip magazines, More! was actually aimed at teenage girls, advising them how to cope with the desperate years when you’re trying to be a woman but you’re still more or less a boy.

With a large amount of fuchsia adorning its covers, and a pleasing lack of finger-pointing “Look! They’re fat” stories inside in comparison to some of its newsstand contemporaries, More! was actually pretty okay. It was no Monocle, but it was certainly no Daily Mail either.

The decline of More! came about as their weekly readership dropped to around 92,000 and many commentators on Twitter chimed in with “good riddance” and “about time too.”

But whatever your thoughts on its content, More! magazine was still a publication, and we like those, do we not? We were a bit subdued about the loss of the London Lite, we were even a bit perturbed by Vice buying i-D – we’re precious about our printed matter. Even if More! wasn’t an object of cultural significance, it was still flying a flag for something that a lot of us fight for on a day-to-day basis.

What does it mean that this magazine is no more? What does it signify that their readership of 92,000 is not quite doing it for Bauer Media? I don’t know yet. But for a magazine of the type I always assumed was too safe to fall by the wayside, it’s pretty scary for the rest of us out there doing a similar thing. Let us not egg the hearses of fallen magazines, but turn up to their funeral solemnly, looking to the future of publishing with hope.

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Portuguese graphic designer and illustrator Braulio Amado – who we interviewed here and who currently works for Bloomberg Businessweek – recently got in touch about the huge expense of entering (and winning) design awards. Here he is on the confusing reality of it costing more than $400 to receive awards from the Type Directors Club.

Did you know that there are more images published every day now than there were in the whole of the 19th Century? Nicholas Mirzoeff has written a brilliant book about this fact, entitled How to See the World. Here’s Nicholas on the myriad ways in which this mass of visual information impacts our perception and creativity, and the “exciting, inspiring and anarchic” effect it might have.

People frequently decry her lack of technical skill. “She can’t draw,” they say. I think this tends to miss the point as much as the worn out reproach, “my three year-old could do that.” In the context of contemporary art, perhaps far more important than being an accomplished draughtsman is the ability to produce gesture and affect. Emin can do this. I also happen to respond well to her loose, evocative hand and think her gouache nudes are visually very strong. I remember reading a typically scathing review from Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard a couple of years ago where he described one of her drawings as a “squalid smudge.”

Elsewhere I’ve read that based on her ability she is undeserving of her success, that there are more talented artists who will never reach her dizzying heights, that her emphasis on sex is gratuitous and that she shows contempt for anything that is pleasing to the eye. I’m not going to pick apart every criticism, but because Emin is successful and someone else is not fails to invalidate her work (I’d also add that the two are not contingent on one another), to channel her sexuality into her work is her prerogative as a woman in the 21st Century, and as for the question of beauty, by now art has shown it can be ugly and still worthy.

The days of beers in the park and ice lollies at lunchtime are nearly upon us, and with that comes degree shows, and lots of them. But who should be charged with designing the identity for a university degree show – should it be the students, or an external agency? Indeed, do degree shows need identities at all? We want to hear from you; you can add your thoughts to the comments section below.

After the Design Museum names its six category winners for the 2015 Designs of the Year, Rob Alderson argues that the victor in the graphics section is a very worthy winner. You can add your thoughts using the comment thread below.